At 19, he left Britain to volunteer as an English teacher for migrants at Thai-Myanmar border, and he’s never looked back
Steve Gomersall runs Brighter Futures, a school he set up to educate poor migrants and set them on a path to university and more opportunities in life
Steve Gomersall could not speak a lick of Thai or Burmese when he first moved to Mae Sot, a district in western Thailand that shares a border with Myanmar.
Fast forward 10 years, and the now 29-year-old teacher has still yet to master the languages of his students, but has blended into the community just fine, having set up an English school for poor migrants.
“I came to Mae Sot for a variety of reasons,” the Briton says.
His journey to the Southeast Asian country began when he enrolled into the University of Hong Kong’s nascent MOEI programme. It was formed in 2008 to provide intensive English language education for migrant children and adults from Myanmar in an area situated along the Moei River at the Thailand-Myanmar border.
The programme, under HKU and the Hong Kong Jockey Club, has since been renamed NGL (Nurturing Global Leaders).
“I went from ... living for myself to having a heart for other people, seeing and valuing the local community. In Myanmar and Thailand, it’s the community that is important, not the individual. That had a transforming effect on me,” Gomersall says, adding that faith also led him there.